Why does it seem crazy that elite LACs (and universities) have applicant pools full of students who have taken APs in most of the 5 core subjects (English, math, science, social science, and language), and many in all 5? There’s no single AP that’s absolutely required, but the lack of AP Calculus will definitely be noticed (as an example, Wesleyan says in “The Gatekeepers” that they explicitly flag applicants who have not taken all of Bio/Chem/Physics, math up to Calculus, or 4 years of language). Whether it hurts you relative to others or you’re still accepted on the basis of the rest of your application, is the question that nobody can answer with certainty. But when 80% of the student body has a certain attribute, do you really want to hope for that bottom 20%?
@MYOS1634 Thank you very much for your input. I am going to share it with my son. He is interested in business, definitely not engineering. I hope your answer will give him some reassurance that it’s ok…